Discuss your views of Weiss and Henry’s claims that “the purpose of evaluation is to bring about social betterment” in relationship to the target of evaluation you selected. Comment on your level of agreement or disagreement with the claim and your reasons why. Discuss two other uses for program evaluation.
Also respond to this Taneadra Jones post at the end of the assignment.
Program evaluation continues to be a useful tool for determining if programs are meeting their stated goals. Every school curriculum is designed with certain goals in mind. The program evaluation measures the outcome of a program based on its student-attainment goals, implementation level, and various external factors such as budget constraints and community support. Carol Weiss and Gary Henry have argued that social betterment is the reason for evaluations defining social betterment as the problem solver of social problems and the encourage of human needs. I think those two claims are highly untrue and don’t seem to be important and when it comes to evaluations that occur in schools such as standardized assessments. The first and most important issue when it comes to an evaluation in schools is how well students master new facts and skills which is often measured by standardized tests. Students are by far the last thing on the state’s mind when requiring schools to administer these kinds of tests. Disagree with these claims as they are not true in today’s society. Although Weiss and Henry may have wanted social betterment to be the forefront of evaluations and to bring about positive change, it is simply not happening in the education field now